FORMIC MASONRY. 315 



supported partially by the stems of a plant, which also occu- 

 pies the flower-pot ; but the little masons by whom it was 

 erected possess intuitively the dexterous art of joining grains 

 of dry sand, so as to support one another " on some similar 

 principles," supposes a nice observer, " to that of the arch." 



Beneath the arches thus wondrously erected are chambers, 

 upper and chief ones, lower and ground ones, all, or most of 

 them, appropriated as nurseries, for the eggs, cocoons, and 

 pupae of what insects we need hardly tell you, since the ac- 

 tive artificers are now many of them to be seen. Any one 

 can tell them to be ants ; but all may not know them, by their 

 tiny dark brown bodies, to be " tar/*-ants,* one of the com- 

 monest species of the masons, and so called from their 

 practice of building usually round a tuft of grass, for the sake 

 of the support afforded by its stems to their earthen walls. 



Various other structures, something of this description, are 

 here collected ; some under glass-frames, through which we 

 can discern the little labourers at work upon the earthy, 

 clayey, or sandy materials with which they are supplied. We 

 have not time to watch their proceedings, and can only ob- 

 serve further of their edifices, that some of them are much 

 more complicated, intricate, and complete than that of our 

 turfite in the flower-pot. Presenting usually the outward form 

 of a simple mound or hillock, they, in some instances, f con- 

 tain within "thick earthen walls, well-marked stories, passages, 



* Formica caspitum. t In the nests of Formica fusca. 



